


The Constellation of Our Hearts

by TheRickestRick



Series: The Dimensions of Our Reality [2]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adult Morty Smith, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Drama & Romance, Identity Issues, Incest, Loss of Identity, M/M, Rating May Change, Relationship Problems, Sequel, Tags May Change, Young Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:11:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRickestRick/pseuds/TheRickestRick
Summary: Rick should have been celebrating having his whole life ahead of him again, like Morty wanted to, but the truth was, he'd had more life in him when he’d been dying, and if Morty didn’t know better, he’d think his grandfather was seriously depressed.Morty was starting to think he didn’t know better at all, and the way Rick was pulling away from him left his heart bleeding. Everything had changed, and with it, everything Morty thought they had together was falling apart. He had no idea what he’d done wrong.- This work is a sequel and probably won't make a lot of sense without reading the previous story first. -





	1. Distance

Rick stared at his reflection in the mirror, and his reflection looked back dispassionately as it pawed through shower wet hair, thicker and brighter than it should be, a near electric blue that would soften as it dried, but still wouldn’t be the blue-gray to which he’d become accustomed for the most recent decades of his life.  His hands worked to arrange it into something that looked like he’d at least tried, yet he knew it would end up falling into swooping, pointed waves like once had, a long time ago. His skin, too, was more taut, wrinkles gone and a flush of life returned to his once ashen pallor. And, of course, there were the goddamned glasses.

He’d been like this for a couple of months now and it wasn’t getting any better. It still felt wrong.

The poor eyesight could be fixed easily enough, but he hadn’t yet bothered. It was difficult to care about that, or much else, when he felt so out of step with everything, physically rooted in a past he’d long left for dead that kept rushing back in the sense-memories of his newfound youth, while trapped in a present that felt as though it had filled in the space his death should have left behind. It didn’t have room for him anymore, and he could feel it constantly as this reality tried to push him out like a foreign body from a bleeding wound, leaving him to be the one left behind, instead.

He desperately hoped Morty would be ready to leave soon. He couldn’t tolerate being here for much longer, and were it not for the… the _thing,_ this complicated _thing_ hanging over them, this nebulous _whatever_ they had become, Rick would have cracked and bailed out weeks ago. But he couldn’t leave Morty like that, not since they’d proven themselves willing to die for each other, not since they’d _been together…_ They hadn’t merely  _fucked,_ if Rick was being honest with himself; they’d _made love,_ _Jesus Christ,_ Rick thought as he splayed a hand across his blushing face to hide from his reflected embarrassment. Such a thought was sappy to the point of being vaguely disgusting, but they’d been open and intimate in ways that were too vulnerable to suit any other descriptor, and the feeling combined with his uncertainty in a way that left him feeling slightly nauseous.

He had no idea where they were to go from here. The truth was that their circumstances had changed drastically since they’d slept together; he’d been old then, and on the verge of dying, and it had been meant all at the same time to be both forever, and temporary, because ‘forever’ would have ended… right about now, actually. He would have died and Morty would have grieved but eventually moved on, whether out into the multiverse or into some totally average life on Earth, and while Rick had certainly hoped for the former over the latter, he hadn’t considered the possibility of having his age reversed and being expected to live out his own life all over again. That possibility was like flipping a coin and having it land on its edge, and, for not having been able to rationally predict that this outcome was possible, Rick had managed to tie Morty down to him and then fuck it up royally, in spectacular fashion as only he could, by not somehow not being able to actually fucking die.

If he were a stronger man, he’d leave, and let Morty have a life of his own. And were he a weaker man, he’d have caved weeks ago and picked right back up with Morty where they’d left off. But he was neither, and whatever was between them was left hanging in limbo while he avoided the situation for the most part, he and Morty orbiting around each other in the ever-tightening confines of the Smith family home, except for those moments when his hormonally-driven twenty year old body threatened to break the carefully maintained détente, and usually at the worst of times.

That was an understatement. Rick’s sex drive at seventy had been more active than that of most humans in their prime, and Rick at twenty would have put even a fourteen year old Morty to shame. The temptation to pull Morty close, to kiss him and claim his mouth with lips and tongue and teeth, to sneak into his room at night and get this thing of theirs going again was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Speaking of harder…

Rick glanced down at the bath towel around his waist. It tented obscenely in the front, because _of course_ he was hard again, despite having dealt with his wayward dick once already upon waking up. All it took was a remotely sexual thought, or a glance at Morty that lingered too long, or the wind blowing from the east, or a mouse farting in a neighboring state for all Rick knew, but the goddamn thing was up nearly constantly and was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence. And, seeing as his current train of thought had been about Morty and much more than an incidental, passing notion, this wasn’t going to go away on its own any time soon. No Rick should ever want to be twenty again, he thought; being alive was probably a good thing, but being this young again was a curse.

Rick reached for his cock with a disgruntled sigh, but before he could get a grip on it, he was interrupted by a forceful knock on the door.

“Grandpa Rick!” Summer yelled. “Hurry up! That bathroom is for all of us!”

“Keep your- keep your pants on, Summer, it takes a- takes a while to wash this much hair,” he called back.

Rick sighed again, tightened the towel, and reached for the doorknob instead.

\---

Morty was staring at titties. Big round, green alien titties, and he didn’t know what made him feel weirder: the fifth one in the middle of the other four, or the fact that he was standing in the middle of his family’s living room at nine in the morning on a Saturday as he watched them bouncing thunderously up and down and out to the sides as their owner was thoroughly railed by another alien.

All he’d done was turn on the TV.

“Morty! What are you watching? This is completely inappropriate!”

He turned to find Jerry standing disapprovingly in the doorway, arms folded and eyes narrowed as he gave Morty a decidedly high-roading glare.

“I- I didn’t- this isn’t-!” he stammered, rapidly becoming flustered. And then Beth walked in.

“What are you two OH MY GOD!” Beth said, her words becoming a cry of shock.

“I caught Morty watching _porn_ in the _living room!_ ” Jerry complained. “And it’s gross alien porn!”

“Jerry, that’s a racist example to set for Morty,” Beth chided, folding her arms in a mirror to Jerry’s righteous indignation. “But, Morty, porn in the living room? Remember when you were fifteen and we had that talk about private spaces?”

“I wasn’t watching p- porn in the living room, okay?” Morty cried, fumbling to turn the TV off. “Rick must’ve l- left the interdimensional cable box on one of the i- interspecies erotica channels again.”

“Oh great, so your ‘father’ was watching disturbing alien porn in the living room,” Jerry said to Beth, making air quotes around Rick’s paternity as he’d been doing ever since Rick and Morty had come home. “ _Because that makes it so much better!_ ”

“Don’t talk about him like he isn’t still my dad, Jerry,” Beth snapped back. “Things are different now but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m his daughter!”

“You call me a racist for knowing that alien porn is weird, but you’re totally ignoring what a bad influence he is! _He left alien porn on the TV!_ ”

And just like that, they were off to the races. Morty sighed, hanging his head.

The truth was, things _had_ been different since he and Rick had come home. Things had been downright _difficult._ If the Smith family had thought Rick was a handful at seventy-five, it was nothing on how Rick was now. He was all the jaded cleverness and cocky ego of his older self wrapped in the body of a far more insecure and similarly emotionally underdeveloped twenty year old, and those two sides of him were constantly at war. He was confident and self-assured in one moment and consumed with what others thought of him the next, and if Morty had thought himself perhaps not the most emotionally healthy person ever, it didn’t hold a candle to Rick. Even for a twenty year old, Rick was quick to temper and emotionally stunted, the same as he’d often been when he was old, but worse.

The family wasn’t taking it well, either. Beth might _say_ it didn’t change her relationship with her father, but that wasn’t true and she was slowly coming around to that fact, albeit unwillingly. Rick had never been, to Morty’s knowledge, exceptionally paternal, but these days he wasn’t inclined to be particularly fatherly at all, and Beth went to great lengths to ignore or dismiss the fact entirely. Jerry treated him like he was yet another slacker laying around the house and sponging off Jerry’s (Beth’s) income, and while Jerry had most likely always thought that was the case, any pretense of respect and deference to the man he’d once attempted for the sake of household peace had been was completely abandoned. Not only was Rick inclined to respect Jerry even less, which was something considering that in the past he’d respected him _not at all,_ Jerry’s newfound attitude toward him seemed to set off a whole load of issues of paternal resentment that Rick was far less capable of suppressing. Jerry spent his days trying to catch Rick doing something wrong that he could call him out for, and Rick handled it about as well as one would expect.

Summer handled it better than either of her parents, but even she had her limits, and Rick seemed to test her boundaries constantly without even trying.

Right on cue, Morty heard her dismayed cry from upstairs.

“Eww, Grandpa Rick! Quit walking around the hallway naked! This is like the fifth time!”

“I’m wearing a towel, Summer, what do you- do you expect me to shower with- with my fucking clothes on?” they heard Rick reply with irritation.

“I can still see your- your-” she stammered. “I can still tell it’s _under there!_ ”

“It’s an erection, Summer, you can- you can say it,” he snapped. “It’s just- it’s just morning wood. You think I- do you think I fucking _enjoy_ the fact that I could be holding this towel up with- without- even if it _wasn’t_ wrapped around my ass? Seriously, it- it's like all day with this.”

“Oh my god, gross! I don't need to know! Just go put on some pants like a _normal person,_ ” she yelled back. “Just because you’re not old anymore doesn’t mean anyone wants to see that!”

“Christ, fine, I’ll put on- I’ll put on pants! You- you need to _chill the fuck out,_ Summer, seriously!”

The heard a door slam as Rick went into his room, followed by Summer angrily slamming the bathroom door behind her.

“Nice. Real nice,” said Jerry, giving Beth a passive aggressive side eye.

“Oh don’t even start again,” Beth snapped.

“All I want is to have a nice weekend breakfast with my family!” Jerry cried defensively.

“Yeah, well _breakfast is served,_ ” Beth hissed. “That’s what I came out of the kitchen to tell you.”

She stormed back into the kitchen angrily.

“What did I do?” Jerry whined.

\---

Rick flopped on his cot, staring up at the ceiling and longing for the mostly flaccid days of his old age, wistfully recalling how it used to take at least a blowjob, and sometimes a hang-glider and a giraffe, for him to be ready to go as he jerked himself off roughly. On the plus side, it didn’t take him nearly as long to get it over with anymore, although that wouldn’t be such an advantage once he did get back into the sack with someone ( _Morty,_ his mind suggested unhelpfully, and while that would definitely speed things along, he tried resolutely _not_ to think about his grandson, because it would only bring him that much closer to acting on those feelings.) He should be mourning the loss of the stamina that old age and desensitization to the mundane realm of human sexuality had once granted him, but if he still had that, he’d probably have to beat it until his dick fell off, so it was just as well.

He was trying to focus on a distinctly un-Morty-like crack in the ceiling plaster when a knock came at the door, and the thrilling possibility of being caught brought him right to the edge – there was a reason watching porn in the living room did it for him, after all – and when Morty’s voice called out that breakfast was ready, that did the trick. Rick curled into himself with a grunt as he spilled into the bath towel, cursing himself in the relief of orgasm that it was Morty that had done it for him, once again.

“Be right- be right there,” he called back, and even the brief, perfunctory pleasure faded as he resigned himself to facing the least pleasant part of being home: _Jerry._

With a displeased sigh, he sat up and began picking through his small wardrobe of clothing piled on the floor for something to wear.

\---

Morty’s heart sank at the dismissal. Rick had started avoiding him not long after they’d gotten home. Not entirely; Rick would still watch TV with him and eat meals with the family, and still let him hang around and help with inventing stuff in the garage, but there was less actual inventing going on and more unsatisfied tinkering with old projects that didn’t really seem to matter. Rick didn’t go on adventures anymore, preferring instead to drift aimlessly around the house or shut himself up in the garage, avoiding Beth cautiously and staying out of the way of Jerry’s overbearing scrutiny.

That was really the issue, apart from the distance between them; nothing seemed to matter to Rick anymore. Morty wasn’t particularly worried that Rick would run off to sleep with someone or something else, although he didn’t want him to, but to the best of Morty’s knowledge, Rick wasn’t doing that, either. Rick wasn’t doing much of anything, apart from drinking, that he'd once considered important. Rick should have been celebrating having his whole life ahead of him again, like Morty wanted to, but the truth was, he'd had more life in him when he’d been dying, and if Morty didn’t know better, he’d think his grandfather was seriously depressed.

Morty was starting to think he didn’t know better at all, and the way Rick was pulling away from him left his heart bleeding. Everything had changed, and with it, everything Morty thought they had together was falling apart. He had no idea what he’d done wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel is happening!!! And of course it's not all happily ever after at the moment. Because Rick can't ever just look happiness in the eye and accept it at face value.
> 
> As with the first story, I'll be posting songs from the playlist in the notes.
> 
> Die Antwoord: Alien


	2. Disparity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family sat down to breakfast, eating in silence for a moment before Rick joined them. He slumped into his seat with a disgruntled huff, looking like he was already done with everything and everyone. Of course, that didn’t mean Jerry was done. Morty could only be so lucky.

The family sat down to breakfast, eating in silence for a moment before Rick joined them. He slumped into his seat with a disgruntled huff, looking like he was already done with everything and everyone. Of course, that didn’t mean _Jerry_ was done. Morty could only be so lucky.

“That’s a new look, Rick,” he said snidely.

Morty looked Rick over. He was wearing distressed black jeans, Morty noticed as he slid his long legs under the table, a black band tee with the sleeves ripped out, and topped it off with a pair of black leather wrist cuffs and the thick-framed black glasses he’d needed since he’d gotten back, which he’d apparently dug out of a box of his old things, not even science stuff but old personal knickknacks that he claimed he’d just forgotten to throw out, yet had somehow made it with him through the many dimensions he’d lived in. Morty’s gaze was drawn back to the shirt; it looked familiar. In fact…

“Uh, R- Rick,” Morty asked. “Is that m- my Bowie shirt?”

“Yeah, Grandpa Rick, are those my wrist cuffs?” Summer added.

“Summer, you- you were never going to wear these,” Rick rolled his eyes. “Your goth phase lasted a month and I think- I think we both know it was ill-advised at best. And- and yeah, Morty, it’s your shirt. You wore it, like, once- one time when you bought it.”

“Y- you can keep it,” Morty said. “You tore the sleeves off…”

“I- I can get another one. I could- I could take you to a concert in- in another dimension where Bowie isn’t dead and- and get another shirt that’s- that’s real concert swag. What- what do you say, Morty?”

“Um, is there a dimension where Karen Carpenter is still alive?” Jerry asked.

“Shut up, Jerry,” Rick snapped. “Come on, Morty, what- whaddaya say?”

“I- I guess that would be cool.”

“Look, I- I’m sorry about the sleeves. I don’t look good- I look like crap in short sleeves, it’s- it’s long sleeves or none,” Rick said. “Welcome- welcome to the gun show, Morty.”

Jerry muttered something.

“What did you- do you- do you have something you want to share with- with the rest of the table, Jerry?” Rick growled.

“I said I think you look like crap in those clothes, _period,_ ” Jerry bit out. “You’re never going to, I don’t know, _get a job_ like you should be trying to do dressed like _that._ ”

“Jerry…” Beth said warningly.

“Is this the part where you- where you tell me McDonald’s is hiring?” Rick snapped, seeming to shrink back into himself as he picked up the syrup. “You- why don’t _you_ try wearing old man clothes in a twenty year old body? I looked like- I looked like a nerd.”

“Pretty sure it’s the glasses that make you look like a nerd,” Jerry said with a mean laugh in his voice. “Am I right or what?”

“Jerry!” Beth hissed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Not cool, Dad,” Summer added.

Rick slammed the syrup down on the table, rattling the plates and silverware.

“Oh you- you want to make fun of my glasses, do you, Jerry?” Rick seethed. “ _For your information, Jerry,_ these are government- they’re government issue. Because when- when I was twenty the _first_ time, I _had_ a job. You know what it was, Jerry?”

Jerry stared at him cluelessly.

“You ever see a- a war movie about Vietnam, Jerry? You know how- how in every one, there’s that one guy- that one guy in the unit with ugly black glasses so you know- so you know that he’s either the smart one or- or a huge fucking asshole that no one likes? _That was me,_ Jerry, and these are _regulation prescription glasses-_ they’re goddamned RPGs, Jerry. I was in- in a fucking war zone before you were even an itch in your- in your dad’s ballsack. You- you want to tell me again how nerdy I look in them?”

“I- I didn’t know you could be in the military with bad eyesight,” Jerry said lamely.

“Well, you’re- you’re wrong, as usual, but it’s beside the point,” Rick said sullenly. “At that point, they were- they were drafting people. They’d have taken me if I had cloven hooves for feet.”

The family stared in awkward silence for a moment.

“You know, glasses like that really came back in a big way,” Summer offered kindly.

“Yeah, Summer, thanks for- thanks for trying,” Rick said, slouching in his seat.

“I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass, Grandpa Rick. It’s really a thing.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You should totally keep the cuffs, you were right that they weren’t my look. Remember, you said I shouldn’t try to be something I’m not to get a guy to like me, and that’s how people become Juggalos. But the cuffs could totally be a look for you.”

“Thanks, Summer,” Rick said, fingering the cuffs and looking marginally happier.

“You had short hair when I was little,” Beth said suddenly. “I didn’t realize that was why.”

“Yeah, I mean, they- they really drill some habits into you, you- you know?” Rick replied. “I did- I did the long haired hippie thing for a while- for a while afterward, but then your mom came along and, I dunno, I was- I was trying to get my shit together.”

“Yeah, real good job getting that to stick,” Jerry said snidely.

“You know what, Jerry, fuck- fuck _off,_ you sound like my fucking _father._ ”

“I don’t think I appreciate all this swearing at the breakfast table,” Jerry complained.

“Jerry, stop it,” Beth said as she got up, and, yep, she was heading for the wine.

“Wow, Rick,” Morty said, looking to distract Rick, who looked like he was ready to get up and go for Jerry’s throat. “I d- didn’t know that about you. I mean there was that one time w- with the parasites and you said you were in ‘Nam with Ghost in a Jar, but I- I didn’t know that was real.”

“Those things- they’ll make false memories if they have to, but if they can draw on- if they can use a memory that already exists, it’s- it’s an easier sell.”

“Just like me and Tinkles,” Summer said.

“Yeah, that- that shit you described was like an- an acid trip and a half, but the parasites obviously extrapolated from your- from your childhood and all the- all the stuff you imagined your stuffed sheep-thing doing.”

“Dad, how do you know about Tinkles being a toy?” Beth asked, returning with a wine glass in hand. “You weren’t around when Summer was that little.”

“It’s- it’s complicated,” Rick grunted. “Don’t- just don’t think about it too hard.”

“But Grandpa Rick,” Summer said, her brow scrunching up, “I thought those parasites only showed us good memories and that’s how we could tell. But wouldn’t being in a war be a bad memory?”

“Well, yeah, there were- there was a lot of it that was- most of it was pretty fucking horrible,” Rick said.

“Watch your language!” Jerry complained again. Rick glared at Jerry, using his middle finger to push his glasses up before turning back to Summer.

“But it was also- it was the first time- the first time I found out there was something- something I was good at.”

“What, you mean… killing people?” Jerry asked uncertainly.

“Fuck you, Jerry! You don’t just- you don’t just fucking ask someone that shit,” Rick said, standing up abruptly and looking at Jerry with anger flashing in his eyes before turning to leave the table. “I don’t fucking want to- to talk about this anymore.”

“But Dad, don’t you want to finish breakfast?” Beth called after him as he headed toward the garage.

“I’m not hungry,” he grunted back, and the garage door swung shut with a slam.

“Hey! Take it easy on the masonry!” Jerry whined. “It’s like having an overgrown teenager in the house!”

“Oh, jeez, th- thanks,” Morty said, feeling hurt. He’d been a teenager himself only a few months ago.

“I mean, what’s next, loud music and social activism?” Jerry scoffed, oblivious to the fact that no one found him entertaining.

As though on cue, loud and very likely alien music started blaring from the garage.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath for the social activism, Dad,” Summer commented idly as she picked up her phone.

“I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath for him to start earning his keep around here and get a job, either,” Jerry bitched. “Speaking of which, you two should get on that before you end up an unemployed weirdo like your ‘grandfather.’ I mean, all three of you need to start thinking about moving out one of these days.”

Jerry did the air quotes thing again, and Beth turned to him with a hard glare.

“Jerry, one more word and I swear to god…”

\---

The day didn’t get any better as it progressed, as Beth continued to drink and Jerry persisted in dropping hints about Morty’s employment or college prospects.

“I get it, Morty,” Jerry had said in that tone he used when he thought he was being understanding but was about to say something incredibly shitty. “Not everyone is cut out for college. So maybe you and Summer aren’t going to be pursuing a degree any time soon, but there are still call centers and retail work.”

Morty stared at Jerry’s weasel-smile and wondered if it showed on his own face how dead he felt inside from looking at it.

“Uh, cool,” he said noncommittally. “I’m gonna, um, go help Rick with some s- science stuff in the garage.”

“Right, ‘science stuff,’” Jerry said, rolling his eyes. “You know all this ‘science stuff,’ but you can’t hack it at community college.”

“I- I can do repairs on the ship and plot a course on three axes around the gravitational well of a level six temporal distortion in real time while in a dogfight,” Morty said levelly.

“So you could… be a mechanic?” Jerry said, clearly not comprehending most of what Morty had just said to him.

“I could be a f- fighter pilot if I wanted to deal with authoritarian, militaristic, p- planetary mindsets,” Morty said.

“Sure, _you_ could be a _fighter pilot,_ Morty,” Jerry said with a chuckle before narrowing his eyes. “Also, you sound too much like Rick.”

“Yeah, so, um, garage,” Morty replied.

He headed for the door as Summer came in and sat down on the couch to watch TV.

“Summer, did you fill out an application at that Starbucks where I saw the ‘help wanted’ sign?”

“How did you pay for college, again, Dad?” Summer asked blithely.

“It’s funny you should ask, Summer,” Jerry said, with a misty-eyed, faraway look of nostalgia. “I worked a summer job caddying on the golf course at the country club. There was this crazy gardener who kept trying to blow up gophers with dynamite, and my buddies were always trying to put one over on all the rich people… I remember one time, someone dropped a candy bar in the swimming pool and everyone thought it was a-”

“Dad, that is _literally_ just the plot of _Caddyshack,_ ” Summer said.

“… It is?” Jerry asked, looking confused. “I could have sworn…”

“I thought Grandma and Grandpa paid for your tuition,” Summer said. “You know, _your parents?_ ”

“I don’t remember… and so what if they did?” Jerry said, back on his high horse. “You kids just don’t have a good work ethic and you think you’re entitled to someone else paying for everything.”

“Oh my god, you’re such a hypocrite,” Summer muttered, picking up the remote and clicking the TV on, only to scream when the screen came on. “WHAT THE HELL?”

The breasts were blue this time, and even-numbered.

Morty saw Jerry gearing up for another rant about Rick and bolted through the door, closing it behind him and mercifully cutting Jerry off.

\---

Rick was hunched over his desk, his usual lab coat thrown on over his new ‘young person’ clothes. He was fiddling with a machine that seemed to be distilling some substance that seemed right on the edge of going from liquid to gas into a sealed container. He glanced up as Morty came in and turned the music off.

“So, uh, Rick,” Morty began. “D- did you, or did you not, replace some of Jerry’s m- memories with parts of the movie _Caddyshack_?”

Rick looked up from his work with an expression that said, _who, me?_ He held it only for a second or two before breaking into a small, mischievous smile.

“Did he start about- about the gopher?” Rick asked. “Just wait until he takes the- takes that dream vacation to Florida he’s always talking about. I put some parts of _Jaws_ in there, too.”

“Rick!” Morty cried out.

“Relax, Morty,” Rick said reassuringly. “It’s- it’ll be fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it- it’ll work anywhere there’s a _beach,_ so even if he goes to California or Hawaii instead-”

“Rick! Th- that isn’t what I _meant!_ ”

“I didn’t- it wasn’t _recently,_ ” Rick said. “I did it a couple- a few years back when he was acting like it was- like it was Summer’s fault she couldn’t afford college, and not because his unemployment ate up the- the college funds. I thought if he was more sympathetic, he might- he might not be such a dick about it.”

“And you w- wanted to make him look stupid.”

“I don’t have to _help_ him with that,” Rick replied. “But, also, yes. Anyway, I was- it turns out I was wrong. Now he just thinks he got through college by- all by himself.”

Morty sighed. “Did you p- put anything _else_ in there?”

Rick bit his lip, looking like he was deep in thought.

“Some scenes from _When Animals Attack._ ”

“Aw, jeez,” Morty groaned.

“Hey, that idiot shouldn’t be- he shouldn’t be out in the wilderness, Morty,” Rick said. “He’d burn down a- a forest and still find a way to- a way to die of hypothermia in the flames. So what if he- if he won’t go camping anymore. I did him _and_ the wildlife a favor, Morty.”

“But Rick, we h- haven’t had a decent family vacation in years.”

“Well you know- you know what, Morty?” Rick snapped. “There’s always Paris, or even- even fucking Toronto, Morty, but I didn’t make Jerry afraid of foreigners. He did that all on his own because he’s a- he’s a fucking xenophobic piece of shit. Now hand me that- that goddamned broken defraculator over there.”

“Um, Rick, I d- don’t think this ever was a defrac- defraculator, or whatever…” Morty said, picking up the object from a shelf.

“Does it defraculate, Morty? _Does it?_ NO. So it’s a broken- it’s a fucking broken defraculator,” Rick said, holding his hand out. “Just- just give it here, already.”

Morty handed it over and watched as Rick turned some knobs, the device powering up with a hum, though apparently not a hum of defraculation, whatever that was. Rick turned it back off, then pulled the tube he’d been distilling the semi-gaseous liquid into out of the distiller. He sprayed the alleged defraculator with it, then leapt from his seat and threw the device on the ground. He kicked it roughly, then reached under the desk and pulled out a golf club, beating the defraculator savagely until he broke into a sweat.

“Take that, Jerry! Fucking- fucking _take it-_ take it like a _bitch, Jerry!_ ” he yelled, and the golf club bent under the strain.

“J- Jesus Christ!” Morty yelped.

Rick threw the mangled golf club aside and picked up the defraculator from the floor. He turned the knobs again, and to Morty’s surprise, the lights on the device lit up and it hummed again, the same as before.

“Still works,” Rick grunted. “Still doesn’t- doesn’t defraculate for shit, but, you know, _whatever._ ”

He pulled out a baseball bat and sprayed it down.

“You want- you wanna give it a try?” he offered, holding the bat out to Morty.

“Uh, gee, Rick, I- I think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself,” Rick said with a shrug.

He threw the not-actually-a-defraculator on the floor again and repeated the process, cursing Jerry’s name wrathfully, but unlike the golf club, the bat didn’t break. It didn’t so much as splinter, though it did take a chunk out of the garage floor.

“ _Fuck you, Jerry!_ ” he yelled with a final whack at the device, which he then spat upon. He shoved the bat into Morty’s hands, breathing heavily with exertion.

“R- Rick,” Morty quavered. “Are you a- alright?”

“I’m what- I’m whatever, Morty,” he said, waving a hand dismissively as he sat and tested the still-working non-defraculator again. “It’s for science, Morty, you- you need to be able to replicate results. That’s how science works.”

He took his glasses off and set them carefully on the desk, leaning close so he could see as he picked up the spray. He sprayed them liberally, then handed them to Morty as the spray evaporated.

“Go ahead. Take- take a crack at them.”

“B- but Rick, what if-”

“They’re not gonna break. Hopefully. Better to break them- better they break now than at some later point when I’ll be totally screwed without them.”

“Uh… okay…” Morty said uncertainly.

He set the glasses carefully on the floor, which seemed fairly ridiculous given what he was about to do, and gave them a few hard hits with the bat. He felt the impact reverberate through the wood, but both the bat and the glasses endured the beating. Picking them up, he checked them over and handed them back to Rick, who looked them over, squinting, and put them back on.

“See? As in, I _can,_ so it’s- it’s all good, Morty,” Rick said with a cheeky grin. “You can- you can keep the bat. I took it from your room- I swiped it from under your bed, Morty, so you’re- you’re welcome.”

“Oh- oh hey, look at that, this is my bat, ha!” Morty said with a somewhat forced laugh, then bit his lip as he thought how best to broach what was on his mind. “Um, Rick, I- I was thinking maybe we should… talk?”

The smile fell from Rick’s face.

“What- what about?” he said, his expression closed off.

“Y- you know, it just seems like m- maybe you aren’t, I dunno, dealing with some stuff too, um, too well.”

Rick looked like he was going to brush it off, or maybe get angry again, but the garage door burst open.

“What is all the racket in here about? Are you destroying my _garage?_ ” Jerry cried.

“Fuck- fuck me,” Rick muttered under his breath.

“And don’t think I didn’t hear you yelling about me- _Jesus, is that my nine-iron??"_

“Ugh, Morty, get in- get in the ship,” Rick grumbled, pushing away from the desk and hurrying to the ship in long strides.

Morty matched him and they shut themselves inside the ship in short order, Jerry’s shouts becoming muffled.

“Ship, dampen exterior sound,” Rick commanded.

“ _Activating protocol: shut your goddamn hole, I swear to almighty Jesus,_ ” the ship announced, and Jerry fell silent to their ears, though they could still see him yelling and waving the twisted remains of the golf club.

“I didn’t- you know I didn’t name it that, you’re just making shit up, now,” Rick said to the ship.

“ _He is fortunate I haven’t shut him up permanently. Permission to deploy atmospheric weaponry?_ ”

“No, not- not in the garage, you’ll blow us all to- all to fucking hell right along with him,” Rick sighed.

“Wh- when did she get so, um, snarky?” Morty asked. “I’ve been meaning to a- ask for a while now.”

“She’s a developing- a developing AI that spent her- her nascent years around two teenagers. And also me,” Rick replied. “It was bound to- her heuristics were bound to adapt to the social input she was picking up from you, me, and- and Summer. And when she got on Facebook, it- it really went downhill from there.”

“She’s on F- Facebook?” Morty asked, his mouth drooping in surprise.

“Worse. She got a- a fucking invite to Rickbook. Look at this shit,” Rick groused, pulling out his phone. He opened it to show a social networking thread featuring a photo of Rick himself, in his newly youthful state, wearing Doofus Rick’s pink-rimmed glasses.

“There’s a- a Facebook for Ricks?” Morty asked, eyes widening as he saw some of the excessively douchy comments below the photo.

“Like a Rick would be on- on fucking Facebook. I’d sooner be found- I’d rather be found dead with my dick out by your- by a Jerry,” he said. “I should have deleted this fucking picture. I’m a goddamn- I’m a fucking joke to them. Goddamn- goddamn ridiculous pink pieces of shit.”

_"On Wednesdays we wear pink. So fetch,"_ said the ship coolly. 

__

"Shut up," Rick snapped.

__

He typed something quickly and posted it to the comment thread. Morty caught a glimpse of something that looked suspiciously like _fuck me in your mother’s underwear_ before Rick locked the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.

__

“So you- you wanted to talk?” he asked.

__

“I- I mean, kinda… but we don’t h- have to if you don’t w- want to…”

__

“I _don’t._ I’d rather eat the ass out of a Glorpzargian muskpig. Which is fucking- fucking _disgusting_ if you couldn’t guess.”

__

“Y- you just seem like you’re pretty unhappy, is all.”

__

“It- it’s an adjustment, all- all of this, I- I mean,” Rick said, gesturing to himself as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Being here pretty much- it fucking _sucks,_ Morty. Just- you know what, just don’t- don’t think about it.”

__

“How am I s- supposed to not think about it when you’re s- so-”

__

“When I’m so _what,_ Morty?” Rick snapped. “I didn’t- I never _asked_ you to let some aliens fucking _experiment_ on me and- and turn me into _this._ Is that- is that what you want to hear?”

__

“You were _dying!_ You were l- literally about to d- die right in front of me!” Morty cried. “Where would that have l- left me? Wh- where would that have left _us?_ ”

__

Rick opened his mouth to respond, but Jerry crossed in front of the ship, shouting silently and carrying his ruined golf club and the still turned on not-a-defraculator, which he set on the floor. Glaring at Rick, he raised the nine-iron and started striking the device with it. Suddenly, a burst of light came out of the device, disintegrating the golf club and throwing Jerry backward onto the concrete.

__

“Holy shit! I guess it- I guess it _does_ defraculate!” Rick said, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in shock.

__

“J- Jesus! _That’s_ what d- defraculating does?” Morty yelped.

__

“Does- does that golf club look- does it look like it’s still f- fucking _fraculated_ to you, Morty?”

__

“Aw jeez, is J- Jerry gonna be okay?”

__

They watched as Jerry stared at the apparently-a-defraculator-after-all, backing away slowly before crawling into the house.

__

“He’ll be fine- he’s just gotta- gotta walk it off,” Rick said, not too convincingly.

__

“Um… s- so about, you know, _us…_ ”

__

“I don’t- I _really_ don’t want to talk about it. Not- not right now,” Rick said.

__

From the corner of his eye, he could see Morty looking downcast. He looked anywhere but Morty and finally settled on staring at the scorched ashes of the golf club littering the garage floor.

__

“W- we could do s- something else, maybe…” Morty said, his voice wavering with sadness.

__

Rick pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment.

__

“Well…” he said slowly. “I can- I can think of one thing we could- we could do…”

__

“Y- yeah, Rick?” he asked hopefully.

__

Rick popped open a panel in the dashboard of the ship, pulling out a baggie and holding it up.

__

“Yeah, Morty. I have some- I got some pot.”

__

Morty looked at Rick with wide eyes, then shrugged, because at that point, he thought, _why the fuck not?_

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and comments on the first chapter! Wow! Keep being amazing, dear readers!
> 
> Metric: Help I'm Alive


	3. Displacement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morty leaned on the windowsill for a while, looking out into the night, up at the stars, until he felt homesick – for a place, he realized, that wasn’t here, because this wasn’t home anymore. He’d felt more at home in the past year out in the universe, at Rick’s side, where he belonged. His heart didn’t live in this house anymore, not with Rick so unhappy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Drug use, experiences in warfare.

Morty stared at a reality distorted, as though viewed through a fishbowl, everything foggy and warped around the edges. The cabin of the ship hung thick with smoke, and Rick’s glasses perched on his face, making the interior of the ship and the garage outside it blur and shift messily with every movement, of which he was inclined to do as little as possible.

“Fuuuck,” Rick sighed next to him, slumped heavily in his seat. “I think I- I smoked myself _blind,_ Morty. I can’t- I can’t see _shit._ ”

“Y- your eyesight is really f- fucked, Rick,” Morty agreed.

Rick stared blankly at Morty, squinting his eyes and leaning forward marginally in an effort to see him better.

“Your face looks like- it looks like my glasses, Morty,” he said slowly. Morty couldn’t tell if he was actually talking that slowly, or if everything was just really slowed down because he was baked.

“You put your g- glasses on my face,” Morty slow-talked back.

Rick pawed his own face for confirmation.

“Ohhh. Yeah. That- that happened,” he said. He reached toward Morty, lazily batting in the direction of the glasses, and Morty took them off and put them in Rick’s hand, missing once in his lack of coordination. Rick slipped them onto his face, narrowly avoiding poking himself in the eye with one of the bows. He wobbled as reality shifted into slightly better focus. “Fuck, that- that’s some weird shit.”

“Why don’t you, y- you know, get them f- fixed again?”

“Get… what?” Rick asked. “What’re you- what were we talking about?”

“Eyes… e- eyeballs,” Morty muttered.

“Yeeeeah. Right,” Rick intoned. “I- I dunno. It’s like… they’re my _eyeballs._ ”

Morty snorted and started giggling, and Rick joined him, laughing until tears streamed down their faces. They gasped for breath until their laugher ebbed.

“Wh- what’s so funny?” Morty asked with a final giggle.

“My eyeballs. And- and weed, Morty,” Rick said. “It’s- it’s the fuckin’ weed.”

“My nose feels like i- it’s floating, like I- I can see it i- in front of my face,” Morty replied, setting Rick off again.

“You- you’re so fucking high right- right now,” Rick wheezed. “This shit is- it’s- it’s _good shit,_ Morty.”

“It’s g- good shit,” Morty agreed.

They sat in stoned silence for a moment, the minutes stretching roundly in the warped, slow crawl of time.

“Why’re you s- so angry all the t- time?” Morty asked finally.

“I don’t- i- it’s _everything,_ ” Rick mumbled. “Being- being here, Jerry’s a- a fucking pain in the- in the ass, it’s like every- every day he just wants to- to kick me in the balls. And fuckin’- fuckin’ _Beth,_ man. I- I can’t even- I can’t even look at her, sometimes, you- you know? She’s… she’s not my Beth, Morty. My Beth is- my baby girl is fuckin’ _dead_ and I- I still gotta- I gotta see her every fuckin’ day and it’s like… it’s her but it’s not- _it’s not her,_ you know?”

“Jesus,” Morty said sympathetically.

“And the- the whole being- _being twenty again_ thing is- it’s messed up, Morty. It’s some- it’s some messed up shit. It’s _fucked,_ Morty. It’s like I- I remember all this- all this _shit_ that I just wanted to forget- I don’t want to fuckin’ remember and now that I’m like this it- it keeps coming back like- like it just happened.”

“Like the V- Vietnam thing?” Morty asked. “Y- you never talked about it b- before.”

“Yeah, like- like the Vietnam thing, Morty,” Rick sighed.

“It d- doesn’t seem like you. Y- you hate the government and all the- all the… planetary g- geopolitical… stuff.”

“Fuckin’ really, Morty? _Geopolitical?_ You’re- you’re way too stoned for that- for that shit,” Rick scoffed. “But- but okay, Morty, you- you wanna know?”

“Yeah, Rick,” Morty drawled lazily. “I w- wanna know.”

“I was- I was sixteen when- when my dad threw me out- he- he kicked me out, Morty.”

“Because o- of the dudes?”

“One- there was one dude, at- at that point, but yeah,” Rick replied. “I didn’t have money- I- I was broke as- broke as _fuck,_ and- and _homeless,_ and I- I fuckin’ enlisted. Can you believe that- can you believe that shit, Morty? I faked- I doctored my birth certificate and signed up. I guess I thought I- I might as well die for- for a reason instead of- instead of out on the street.”

“Holy shit,” Morty said quietly.

“Yeah. I mean what- what the fuck did I know about- about politics or the- or the government or- or any of that bullshit? So I ended up in- in fuckin’ Vietnam. I did a- a whole lot of shit in the- in the name of God and country, Morty. There was a lot going on- a lot of things were happening over there. It was some ugly- some ugly shit, and if you hear about it, I- I probably fucking did it, hell if I know. There were- there were a whole lot of drugs, Morty. I was- I was outta my fucking mind a lot of the time.”

Morty shifted in his seat, looking at Rick as attentively as he could manage as Rick kept talking, pulling out the baggie of pot and rolling another joint.

“Like, this- this one time, we’re like, we’re out on patrol, and we- we get hit, right? I don’t- I don’t even know what the fuck happened, for the- for the most part, it was just out- outta fuckin’ nowhere. There was an- an explosion and a whole lot of gunfire, and just like that- just like that, we’re in the shit. I go- I go down and so do some of the guys I’m on patrol with, and the next thing I know I’m- I’m on a helicopter getting airlifted to a- to a field hospital.”

Rick paused, licking the rolling paper and sealing it shut.

“There was this guy in my unit. He- he took the hit that was meant for me. I can- I can remember seeing him dead and I- I know I knew him, I knew all the guys in my- in my unit, we were- we were friends, you know? Brothers in- in arms, and all that. But I can’t remember his name, Morty. I can’t remember what his face looked like, before- before he died. He was burned all to- he was burned all to hell from the explosion and that’s- that’s all I can remember about him. I’d be dead- I’d have died that day if it wasn’t for him. Pretty sure that’s what- that’s what Ghost in a Jar was about.”

“Jesus fuck,” Morty breathed.

“So I- I come home, and everyone- fucking _everyone_ starts treating me like I- like I caused the war, like I’m this murderer. And it doesn’t help that, you know, I- I killed people, Morty. I did that, and I had- I had to live with that, and it was hard enough without- without everyone treating me like- like I was some kind of a- a monster. The guys that came back from World War II, they got- they got fuckin’ parades, Morty. My fucking father was a- he was an abusive fucking drunk, but he was- he was still a _hero_. I didn’t- I didn’t want to be a hero, but I- I didn’t want to be shit on by everyone either. I dunno, being- being here, the way Jerry is, it feels like- it feels like _that_ shit all over again, like- like it would have been better if I didn’t come back at all.”

“That’s so f- fucked,” Morty said softly.

“You’re tellin’ me. Anyway, the- the whole bisexual scene was kind of- it was really taking off when I got back into the- into the world, so I- I drowned all that shit in booze and- and drugs and sex. Except for a while with- when I was with Diane, I guess I never really- I never really stopped. I kept my shit to- together for a while but, you know. Underground clubs and glitter. I never- I could never really say no to that, Morty.”

“Wow,” was all Morty could say.

“Yeah,” Rick said. He held up the joint. “You- you wanna burn this down with me and take a- take a weed nap?”

\---

Morty woke up with his face squished to Rick’s shoulder, Rick’s drool slicking his hair. Rick blinked awake as Morty moved, dropping his arm from where it had held Morty to him loosely. The high hadn’t faded completely, but the leaden heaviness had dissipated, replaced instead by a gnawing craving for snacks.

“Kitchen, Morty,” Rick grumbled, as though he could read Morty’s mind, and together they shambled out of the ship and through the garage to the house.

Once there, they crept to the kitchen. As they passed through the living room, they saw that Beth was taking a nap of her own on the couch, a tellingly empty wine bottle laying tipped over on the floor by her dangling hand. A note from Summer stuck to the fridge informed the household that she was going out for the evening because she had a life, and would be home late.

“What do we- what do we got, Morty?” Risk asked as Morty rummaged through the fridge and the freezer.

“F- frozen waffles and frozen p- pizza,” Morty said, holding the options up for Rick to see. His grandfather eyed them contemplatively.

“Let’s make- we’re making both, Morty, preheat the- the oven,” Rick said decisively, taking the waffles and reaching for the toaster.

He slid the waffles into the toaster slots while Morty fiddled with the oven settings, and as they waited, they shifted closer together, until they stood shoulder to shoulder. Morty felt, to his surprise, that rather than pulling away, Rick leaned into his weight, then moved behind him to slide an arm around his chest. Rick turned to nuzzle Morty’s ear, and with every soft breath, Morty felt his heart beating faster.

“Rick…” he sighed.

Just then, the waffles popped up, and Rick pulled away slightly with a startled jump.

“What is going on here?” came an irritated voice from the doorway.

They looked up to see Jerry standing there in his pajamas, looking suspicious and judgmental. Rick reached past Morty and pulled the syrup out of the cabinet.

“Making waffles, Jerry, just- just making some good ol’- some good ol’ waffles,” Rick replied.

“We, uh, we missed dinner, I- I guess,” Morty added.

“Everyone missed dinner,” Jerry huffed. “Beth didn’t make any.”

“You wanna- you want to get in on this?” Rick said.

The oven beeped, and Morty started putting the pizza in.

“I thought you said you were making waffles,” Jerry said.

“A- and pizza,” Morty added.

“Waffles and pizza?” Jerry asked in confusion. He sniffed the air. “Is that… _marijuana?”_

Rick and Morty glanced at each other guiltily.

“It _is!_ You both reek of… of _reefer!”_ Jerry cried indignantly. “You’re standing in my kitchen, stoned out of your minds, making pizza and waffles!”

“We offered to- to share, Jerry. Don’t be a- a- an asshole about it,” Rick gritted out. “And aren’t you a little- a little young to be calling it ‘reefer’? What are you, like- like secretly an old man or something? I thought that was- I thought that was kind of _my_ thing.”

“You got my son high on grass!” Jerry shouted, then turned to Morty. “I am so disappointed in you right now! And I’m mad! I’m mad _and_ disappointed, Morty!”

“Aww, jeez,” Morty whined, looking down at the floor. He had finally been starting to feel like he and Rick might be working things out, but anything good he’d been feeling was sent crashing into a downward spiral with Jerry’s criticism.

“Hey! Back the fuck _off,_ Jerry!” Rick snapped, pulling Morty back against him fiercely. “I’m sick of- of listening to you cripple the self-esteem of every- of every member of this household! I’ve- I’ve _had it,_ Jerry!”

“Don’t tell me how to be a father, Rick!” Jerry yelled back.

“Why are you all being so loud?” Beth called from the living room. She shuffled into the kitchen blearily and chucked her empty bottle into the recycle bin. Rick let go of Morty and took a step back.

“Rick gave Morty marijuana!” Jerry tattled.

“Dad?” she asked, looking back and forth between her father and her son.

“You know I would never let- I would never let anything happen to Morty,” Rick replied.

“ _You’re_ something bad that’s happening to Morty!” Jerry cried. “Beth, he got high with our son!”

“… I can’t do this right now,” she sighed, heading sluggishly for the door.

“Mom, w- wait!” Morty called. He pulled the waffles from the toaster and put them on a plate. “Y- you gotta eat s- something if you’re gonna drink that much.”

“It wasn’t _that_ much,” she huffed, taking the plate. “But… thanks.”

She shuffled back out of the room, waffles in hand, and they heard her climbing the stairs.

“Well that’s just great,” Jerry whined.

The oven timer went off.

“Look, there’s- there’s pizza if you- if you want it,” Rick said. “Or there’s shutting the hell up if you- if you don’t.”

“… Okay, I want pizza,” Jerry said. “But only because I’m hungry, and you should know this isn’t over, Rick. And don’t think you aren’t in trouble here, Morty. We’re dealing with this tomorrow.”

Morty sighed as he coaxed the pizza out of the oven. He could only be so lucky.

\---

Jerry had lingered as they’d eaten in awkward silence. It was truly the worst comedown of all time for Morty. The more the effects of the pot ebbed, the more uncomfortable the tension in the room became, until finally, they were done. Weirder still, Jerry had watched them retreat to their rooms before heading to his own.

Morty lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep, in part because he’d slept away a sizeable chunk of the evening, but also because of the tension in his family. The strain on the household grew worse every day, and he was beginning to lose hope that it would ever get better. He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that his parents had followed through on the divorce all those years ago.

He didn’t think things could continue this way for much longer, either. Eventually, something had to give, and he didn’t know what would give first; whether it would be his parents splitting up again, or himself, caving and doing what Jerry wanted, or he and Rick leaving like they’d planned, although that seemed like it had been put on the back burner lately, what with the way Rick had been so on and off with him. He’d hoped to get Rick to talk about what was going on with them, what had happened to their plans, but if Rick wasn’t willing to talk about it, there was no power on any version of Earth or any other world that could get him to open up.

In the back of his mind, Morty held a secret fear that if things didn’t work out, Rick would just take off and leave without him. The notion festered and itched, like a scab demanding to be picked at until it bled anew.

Morty heard a shuffling sound outside his door a moment before it creaked open.

“Mort- Morty?” Rick stammered softly as he came in. “Are you- are you awake, buddy?”

“Since wh- when do you care?” Morty asked, perplexed.

Rick swayed slightly as he walked into the room, and Morty realized he must have started hitting the bottle pretty hard after they’d gone upstairs. Rick closed the door behind him, and came to sit on Morty’s bed, the baseball bat he’d made impervious in his hand.

“I brought- I brought you this,” he said, offering the bat, and Morty took it and set it against his nightstand. “I- I was wondering why you- why you have that. You don’t play baseball, Morty.”

“I dunno. Like, in c- case of aliens, I guess?” Morty replied.

“You still have- you have a plasma rifle, Morty,” Rick said, wrinkling his brow.

“Yeah, but I can’t just l- leave that where Mom could find it.”

“Oh. Okay, that’s- that’s probably smart,” Rick agreed. He scooted back on the bed and slouched against the wall. “I was- I was thinking that you- you were right, Morty. We should probably- we should talk. About- about us.”

“O- Okay, Rick,” Morty said hesitantly. He shifted until he was leaning up against the wall next to Rick. He had a sinking feeling, from the way Rick looked hunched into himself, that this wasn’t going anywhere good.

“Things are- they’re different now, Morty,” Rick said, pulling his flask from his back pocket and taking a drink.

“I don’t think th- they are,” Morty said.

“You know- you know damn well that they are,” Rick said. “This- the way things are now- this isn’t how it should be and- and you know it, Morty.”

“I- is that why you- why you haven’t wanted t- to do anything? W- with me, I mean?” Morty asked with trepidation. “T- today was the first time I thought you were g- going to start something since we g- got back.”

Rick gave him a long look from the corner of his eye.

“And your dad- your dad walked in,” Rick replied.

“He’s not my dad,” said Morty forcefully.

“Yeah, well he doesn’t know that,” Rick said. “What would- Morty, what would happen if we got- if we did something and he caught us? Or if Beth caught us?”

“I- I guess we could leave?” Morty offered.

“You would just- you would up and bail on your- on your whole life on Earth, just like that?” Rick asked.

“I- maybe,” Morty said.

“See, Morty? It- it isn’t that easy.” Rick leaned his head back against the wall with a thunk.

“Nothing about this is easy, Rick!” Morty said. “I d- don’t know what you’re th- thinking, but i- it isn’t easy for me either! You’re right there but y- you’re still so far away, and I- I barely sleep, Rick!”

Rick turned and looked at him, eyes flashing wide behind the glasses as Morty continued.

“I got s- so used to sleeping next to you and I h- have dreams where you d- die and I wake up and you aren’t there.”

“… Yeah, Morty. It’s the- it’s the same for me,” Rick sighed.

“I still w- want you, Rick!” Morty cried. “Th- that hasn’t changed! Don’t you get that?”

Tears of frustration started welling in Morty’s eyes. Rick bit his lip and reached out, brushing his fingers through Morty’s hair and trailing his hand down to cup Morty’s cheek.

“Yeah, Morty. I get- I get that,” he said.

He leaned in slowly, and as his lips brushed against Morty’s, he whispered,

“This is- it’s a really bad idea, Morty.”

The breath of his words ghosted against Morty’s mouth, and just as Morty was about to tell him he didn’t care, or skip right to kissing, there was a knock on Morty’s door. It echoed like a gunshot in the stillness of the night, and Rick pulled away from him like the snap of a rubber band.

“Morty? Are you awake?” Jerry called from the hallway.

“Shit!” Rick hissed. He scrambled off the bed and threw the window open, swinging out and up onto the roof.

“Uh, y- yeah,” Morty called out as he tried to arrange himself in a position that, he hoped, looked like he was just casually relaxing in bed.

The door opened, and Jerry looked around the room with narrowed eyes.

“Why is the window open?” he asked.

“Just, you know, en- enjoying that summer breeze,” Morty said, sounding too loud and too forced to his own ears.

“Well, the air conditioning is going to run more if you do that,” Jerry complained.

A thump came from the roof.

“What was that?” Jerry asked, looking up as though he could somehow see through the ceiling.

“Oh there’s, um, there’s b- been this raccoon coming around, I think,” Morty said casually, momentarily confused when Jerry whimpered and cringed in fear, until he remembered what the man had rattling around in his braincase courtesy of Rick.

“Keep the window shut so it doesn’t get in!” Jerry cried, running over to slide the window closed. “Those things are vicious, wild animals!”

“Um… okay...” Morty said. “So was there s- something you wanted?”

“I was going to tell your sister that we’re having a family meeting tomorrow after I’m back from golfing – _without my nine iron_ – and I can’t find her. Do you know where she is?”

Oh, jeez, I- I can’t say that I do,” Morty replied. Now that he thought about it, Summer usually wasn’t around in the evenings these days.

“Well if you see her, let her know,” Jerry said, heading to the door and throwing a stern glare at Morty. “And, yes, this is about the marijuana thing.”

He left the room and closed the door. Morty let out a heavy sigh and got up to open the window, hoping Rick would come back, but he didn’t. Morty leaned on the windowsill for a while, looking out into the night, up at the stars, until he felt homesick – for a place, he realized, that wasn’t here, because this wasn’t home anymore. He’d felt more at home in the past year out in the universe, at Rick’s side, where he belonged. His heart didn’t live in this house anymore, not with Rick so unhappy.

He saw movement outside, and realized it was Summer, coming home late, and wearing a raincoat even though it wasn’t raining. He really had the weirdest family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos! Action starts soon. Sooooon.
> 
> If anyone is wondering what the hell is up with this chapter, this is what's up: The episode Total Rickall suggests the possibility - likelihood, even - that Rick is in fact a Vietnam veteran, since the parasites are telepathic and "embed themselves in memories," suggesting that the memories themselves could on some level be real. And that is not something I feel okay just throwing out there without expanding on it and talking about the struggle those guys went through, since I've known people who served in that conflict and dealt with addiction (soldiers were sometimes supplied drugs by their commanding officers, and drug use was rampant, both in the conflict itself and extending afterward) and a lack of acceptance when they came home. That's just my take on it, and there's a lot of nuance to the issue, but out of respect to the people in my life who served, I wanted to illuminate those issues for people who may not know about it.
> 
> Eliza Rickman: Devil's Flesh & Bones


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